Germany captured its third gold in three luge events at the Winter Olympics on Thursday morning (AEDT) when world champions Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt won the men's pairs.

World Cup winners Wendl and Arlt clocked a combined time of one min 38.933 seconds after two runs to finish 0.522 ahead of Austrian brothers Andreas and Wolfgang Linger, who came to Sochi as reigning two-time Olympic champions.

"There are no any special secrets of our success, just two good runs," Arlt said.

He added that the example of his team-mates Felix Loch and Natalie Geisenberger - who won Olympic gold medals in men's and women's singles for Germany - was their inspiration.

"They pushed us, we knew they're now strong and we need to show our best to be level with them," he added.

"Germany is on the top of the world in luge. It's our sport."

In their first run, Wendl and Arlt set a new track record of 49.373 seconds.

Latvian brothers Andris and Juris Sics, who grabbed silver at Vancouver in 2010, finished in third place.

On Sunday Loch had opened Germany's gold medal tally by winning the men's singles Olympic title while Geisenberger added the women's title on Tuesday.

Germany now tops the medals table with six gold medals.

The doubles races took place four years to the day after Georgian 21-year-old luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after a crash during his training descent at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.

International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams said earlier that the tragic anniversary was being marked with a wreath-laying at the Whistler track where the accident took place.

He said that IOC president Thomas Bach had earlier taken part in a "minute of reflection" to remember Kumaritashvili with the International Luge Federation (FIL) in Sochi.